


The Worst Way To Say It

by LittleSweetCheeks



Series: If I'd Known... I never... [5]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Death, F/M, Future Fic, Letters, Loss, M/M, Revelations, Sad, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 18:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: A one night stand turned into his longest love and his biggest heartbreak.





	The Worst Way To Say It

They’d been friends for somewhere in the ballpark of thirty years, more than half the other man’s life, Dave thought to himself. He could still remember clearly the first time they’d met, over the corpse of some poor girl who’d never had a chance, on a case that would take far too many years to solve. Aaron had still been a wet behind the ears agent working with SWAT and fighting his demons all alone and he, well, he’d been fresh enough off wife number two still to think that sleeping with a man he’d never see again in his crappy motel room with it’s peeling walls and questionable bedding was a good idea.

The night had been okay, he supposed. Not his best work, sure. But between the cigars and the alcohol and the rain, because no matter what everyone else said, Dave swore up, down, and sideways that any time he was in Seattle, it was raining, they had rutted themselves to completion more than a couple times.

The catch, though, was that it was meant to be a one-night stand. Like the jackass his wives accused him of being, Dave had been gone already by the time the strapping young man had woke up.

But Dave never forgot a face.

Less than three months later, that face had appeared again in his office, peering at him much more confidently over the shoulder of the assistant director. Dave had had to swallow hard to wet his suddenly dry throat and when he was unable to stand to see them out short minutes later, he swore that Aaron’s eyes dipped knowingly to the desk, as if he were able to see Dave’s throbbing dick through heavy wood, a smirk on his face.

It would turn out, despite two more wives between them and a list of girlfriends as well, that he and Aaron were each other’s longest relationships.

And if that little personal revelation hadn’t been enough for a single day, the one that he’d been handed just hours ago while he still stood in the grass had really taken the cake.

Dave toyed with the paper the letter had been written on, Aaron’s looping script hadn’t changed too terribly much with age.

_David-_

And if that right there wasn’t a clue and a half that what he was about to read was going to knock him on his ass. Aaron had never, _ever_ , addressed him as David.

_I have a confession to make and I know it’s not fair to be making it now, not when I know exactly under what circumstance you will be reading this. The night we first made love in that crummy motel in Seattle, I went home and confessed everything to Haley. This might surprise you, but my confession to her didn’t come as that much of a surprise, she’d known since school who I really was._

_It was Haley who encouraged me to pursue the BAU. You. She was never in the dark about you and I._

Well…that was news…

_Once you retired and moved away, Haley saw how depressed I became and that’s when she brought up having Jack. You know the story of how much we tried, the struggle, what I never told you was the trouble was in part because our marriage was only consummated a handful of times._

_She’d hoped, when you returned to the BAU that our relationship, hers and mine, would bounce back, but it didn’t. The reality that I was a gay man in love with another man and not my wife simply couldn’t be buried any more._

Oh.

Dave felt his lip tremble. He’d known there’d been something special between them, the late nights in the office, the way Aaron would occasionally reach for him in the dimness of evening, clinging to him.

_I’m sorry you had to find out this way._

‘Damnit Aaron!’ Dave thought to himself. ‘why didn’t you say something in all those years?!’

_I was afraid of what could happen if I admitted my feelings._

‘But if I’d known! We could have been together! I never would have let you go like that!’

_I knew that you had to let me go. You helped me teach Jack was love was, you helped me show him I knew how to relax and smile. You made it possible for me to raise my son in as normal of an environment as we could offer him, for as long as we both were able._

A pair of wet drops splashed onto the page and Dave looked up, but there were no dark clouds overhead, nothing but blue sky. He then realized that they weren’t raindrops, but tears. Folding the page and carefully sliding it back into the envelope, he stared at the black coffin waiting to be lowered into the ground. All their history, their _togetherness_ , their fights and their apologies, it all came rushing back. Their…hundreds…of couplings, the late nights and early mornings. He wished, beyond anything else, that he could have just one more minute. One more moment.

“I loved you too, Aaron.”


End file.
